


as food to life

by sammyatstanford



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magical Realism, Baker Sam Winchester
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-09
Updated: 2017-04-09
Packaged: 2018-10-20 19:54:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,134
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10669659
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sammyatstanford/pseuds/sammyatstanford
Summary: Castiel leads a mundane life, working six days a week in a job he no longer enjoys, few personal connections to keep his life interesting. One Sunday at the farmer's market, he meets Sam.Sam just might make things very interesting.





	as food to life

**Author's Note:**

> Written for alx_diamond as a pinch hit for the spn_springfling, based on the prompt "magical realism." This story can stand alone, but I hope to add more in the future.

Sunday is Castiel’s favorite day. It’s the only day he doesn’t have to work, and it’s also the day of the weekly farmer’s market in his neighborhood. He’ll get breakfast from one of the food trucks—potato-stuffed tacos or avocado toast with vegan mayo and alfalfa shoots or sometimes even a donut stuffed with pistachio-orange crème—and wander through the aisles with his reusable bags, visit every stall at least twice before he settles on the veggies he’ll chop into his lunch salads. He’ll spend too long talking to Mr. Cain, the vendor who sells honey products made from the bees he keeps, agreeing that yes, he really does need to come by the farm and see it all for himself one day soon (knowing that he has no time for such frivolity). He’ll enjoy the hum of conversation around him and the children running from stall to stall and the dogs out walking with their owners. Sunday is temporary, but it is a relief from the sometimes oppressive business of his everyday life.

On this particular grey, cloudy Sunday, Castiel enters the elementary school parking lot where the market is set up feeling a bit glum. He’s been moved to yet another new team at the office, and he doesn’t think he’ll ever make it back to the kind of work he actually enjoys doing. These new positions require him to be much more...aggressive, and while he’s been successful, he doesn’t particularly enjoy the work anymore. So he’s relying on the market to cheer him up even more than he usually does.

Food trucks and bakery stalls flank the entrance, a gauntlet of delicious smells and tempting treats that he doesn’t plan to pass up, but he strolls down the line, considers his options before making a decision. He’s about to turn back, head for the cart that stuffs savory pie dough with all kinds of fillings, when a little breeze touches him, shivers around his neck like a caress, and he turns involuntarily to follow it, sees at the very end, past all the other shops, something new. A small stall, looking almost shoved in and standing out from the others with its mint green overhang. Castiel can’t say what about it draws him in, but he finds himself wandering up to it and doesn’t remember anything he passed by on the way.

There’s a man behind the table—jeans and a white t-shirt, the vee of the neck disappearing under a navy apron reading Mary’s in a loopy font, brown hair pulled back and up on his head into a messy bun. He smiles as Castiel approaches, all dimpled cheeks and straight white teeth and Castiel finds himself very suddenly without a thing to say.

The man’s mouth moves, and finally it’s as though whatever spell has had Castiel in its thrall breaks. Castiel takes a deep, measured breath.

“I’m—I’m sorry,” he says, and the man’s smile only grows wider.

“Would you like to try something?” the man asks again, makes a sweeping gesture at the table in front of him. There’s an assortment of pastries and mini-quiches in neat lines under a plexiglass cover, and Castiel scans them up and down a few times before he raises his eyes back up to the man.

“I’m Castiel,” he blurts out, and can feel himself flush immediately. What is _wrong_ with him?

The man lets out a little laugh, and it’s like the sun has decided to shine down on Castiel’s shoulders. “Sam,” he says, extending his hand over the baked goods between them. Castiel takes it in both of his, shakes it sincerely.

“Well Sam, what would you recommend?” Castiel asks, not looking at the pastries at all, and Sam squeezes his hand for a long moment before letting go.

“I think you need one of these today,” Sam answers, grabbing something from the case with a pair of tongs and slipping it into a white paper bag. Castiel misses what, too interested in the movements of Sam’s competent hands.

“Do you have coffee?” Castiel asks.

Sam shakes his head no, a little piece of hair making its way out of his bun with the movement to lay along his face. He tucks it away behind his ear as he passes the bag over. “My brother thinks I should add it to the menu, though. We’re talking it over.”

“How much for the pastry, then?”

“Don’t worry about it,” Sam says. “If you like it, you can pay me next week.”

“That’s a very...interesting business model,” Castiel replies, and Sam gives that light laugh again. Castiel’s stomach feels weightless.

“I get by.”

“Well, thank you, Sam. It was nice to meet you.”

“Enjoy the rest of your day,” Sam replies, and then he _winks_.

Castiel is unpeeling the paper before he even turns away. The chocolate croissant Sam chose for him waits, and he lifts it to his mouth without hesitation, takes a bite. It’s so perfect that it’s almost surreal to enjoy—the pastry is flaky and light but still rich with butter, the filling dark and smooth with hints of caramel and cinnamon. It is perhaps the best thing Castiel has ever eaten.

He takes his time with it, savors each bite, licks the tips of his fingers and dips them into the white wax bag to get every flake that has escaped, and when the experience has finally ended, he simply breathes, lets the food fill him up with warmth and pleasure and an indelible sense of _belonging_ that makes his chest ache. It is a feeling he did not even know he was longing for until it was there, nestled down against the beat of his heart.

He realizes that he cannot possibly wait until next week to explain to Sam just how amazing this food is, and he turns back, retraces the steps he had absentmindedly wandered when he was mind, body, and soul-focused on his breakfast.

But when he rounds the corner, Sam’s stall is gone, only a simple white pavilion tent and an empty folding table where it had stood before. He walks up to it, disbelieving, turning in place to see if he somehow had the location wrong. But no mint awning jumps out at him.

He must have taken longer eating that croissant than he realized. Sam must have had other business to attend to.

Castiel turns back towards the rest of the market, aware in a way he wasn’t this morning of the new flowers budding onto the trees, the sun slipping its way around the clouds. Two little girls dart across his path giggling, and Castiel smiles involuntarily in response. He starts his way over to the farm stalls.

He’ll just have to thank Sam next week.


End file.
